The Commute Killer
Private Detective turned Contract Killer. A Game Prototype
Project Description
The Commute Killer is the project developed over the duration of a semester for my Master’s Game Design class 2019. The theme was “Commuting” and together with a group of 3 other people we developed a hitman-like experience that allows you to play as an ex-detective turned contract killer with cartoony graphics and simplified mechanics.
Design Process
The high concept for this game states:
“Study a person on their daily commute, interact with the environment to find out how you can get the target killed without getting caught!”
This sentence captures the essence of the experience we tried to create. In The Commute Killer, you have a set number of days to complete any given contract. The contract itself gives you a small amount of info on your target and the surrounding area to clue you in on any relevant info. After establishing your goal it’s time to explore the map and find out what kind of interactions are available to you, sabotage a fire hydrant, close a gate or kill another NPC to change some part of your target's commute.
After you have your plan lined up it’s time to execute on it! Grab a weapon and do the deed… but make sure you aren’t seen. After hiding the body, your job is done and the level is over.
All code, sound, and assets are either free to use or created by us. We used unity to build the game, blender, audacity, and photoshop to create the assets, and mixamo to rig and animate the NPCs.
Prototype Development
We figured out the aesthetic we wanted to hit pretty early in development so I explored in that direction a bit by making a few reference sketches and a study (made in Blender) for the 3D asset style that we ended up using in the final prototype.
Demo
In the end, the final demo features some of the core gameplay and content that was necessary to convey and test the original idea. This allowed us to get it in front of some playtesters and get them to give us constructive feedback which made us realize what worked and what didn’t.
It’s still a bit far away from the game we envisioned but, considering the time constraint, we were all pretty proud of what we achieved. This served as a fantastic design exercise and much-needed practice in rapid prototyping.
